The Last of Us Episode 1 : when your lost in the Darkness

I don’t have a PlayStation. I’m still on my 360. I used to work in games and have been subsumed into certain ones. Fallout New Vegas is over a decade old, but if I haven’t played it, it’s new.

Games based on films are wrong, and movies based on games are worse. Oh, we do the numbers and throw out goldeneye lego star wars. But in terms of the other side, aside from the increasingly batshit resident evil timeline, which took the intelligent move of casting aside the actual games as quickly as possible to pursue its path. There is little that’s held. Often due to trying to ‘do the game’ too much.

The Last of us is not a game I’ve played. I suspect my reaction to it is only helped by this. Yes,r there are moments of exposition that scream out of a game. “Hey Ellie, don’t forget your bag that looks strangely shiny in this drab background…maybe it’s a clue” “shit, it’s a zombie. Button bash as a QuickTime event before player 2 enters the arena.” Still, as a whole, the show keeps itself tight, layered, and almost deliberately blue-collar to remind us of a world that has enough problems as it is. For families, anyway.

The show does the due process that one simply has to in the monster-infected apocalypse. It has the chase and the day-one carnage, the authoritarian policing you simply can’t trust. But also shows the greys in between it all, the deals and negotiations between the public and security—the compromises and pragmatism that would not fit in the world of rick grime and his absolute tragedy.

All the moments are there. Everyone waiting for episode 2 should pick up the girl with all the gifts and rent the film. Also, children of men. Frankly, it’s the synergetic sequel that wears its DNA on its bitten wrist but has enough reality to shamble alone.

It’s intense and subdued. And the traditional HBO production values still shine, right down to the suspense theme song and intro sequence. 

The eA fascinating episode that shows and not tells on so many levels. As soon as you feel you ‘know’ the show, another twist comes, and you’re scrambling for cohesion while never feeling duped.

I’m in.